The Gnome Project released version 2.12 yesterday. We had a quick look at it by using the latest Gnome Live CD (1.12-pre) and Foresight 0.9.0 (2.12 final) and here are our thoughts over 2.12 and Gnome's status in general.

From the garnome FAQ:
3.10 GARNOME installs a package I don't want, can I get rid of it?

Occasionally, a package is released that will not build on some systems, this can be due to a number of factors -- including:
Your system may lack the tools to compile a package
Your system may be too old to compile a package
The package conflicts with a library already on your system
There is a maintainer bug in the package

The easiest solution to this problem is to remove the package directory from it's meta-repository, eg:

rm -rf fifth-toe/rhythmbox

Would remove the Rhythmbox package from the optional fifth-toe repository

caution: If a package located in the platform/ or desktop/ directory will not compile, please consult the mailing list archives for a possible solution BEFORE removing it -- as this action will probably damage the dependency checking that GARNOME uses to build a working installation.